The First Taste

Holden is right.

We’re all a little fucked up.

We’re all a little broken.

One day I’m going to find someone who accepts that. Who loves me anyway. Who wants me anyway.

Someone else.

Not that he—

God, it’s hard to breathe in here.

Dad grabs a box of gel roller pens. His favorite brand. Blue. Of course. “Does he know?”

“What?”

“Does your brother know you slept with his friend?”

“Dad!”

“Should I pretend it isn’t obvious?” He chuckles because it’s very obvious.

“Oh my God.” Please stop this conversation. Somehow.

“Were you safe?”

“Yes.”

“With everything?”

“I’m not—”

“You can get STDs from—”

“I know.” My face flushes. My chest too. My dad is lecturing me about STDs in an office supply store. A week before the district’s classes resume.

God knows who could be here.

Maybe someone I knew in high school is listening. They’re probably sending out a mass text oh my gosh, can you believe it? Daisy Flynn finally got laid.

“They have testing at the school’s medical center,” he says.

“Yes.” I do not need to have this conversation.

“You should make an appointment. Just in case.”

I clear my throat.

“Or would you rather find a gynecologist who can see you outside of school? In case you stay in Berkeley. I’m sure your mother—”

“Can we please not?”

“No.” His voice stays matter-of-fact. “If you don’t promise to make an appointment, I’ll have to call your mother and—”

“I promise.” Anything but that.

He nods good. Grabs another box of pens. Tosses it in the cart. “Unless you prefer black.”

I shake my head. “Blue is good.”

He motions to the red pens.

I nod yeah.

“Are you going to tell Oliver?” He grabs two boxes.

Oliver. Not your brother. That means something, but I’m not sure what. “It was just a… fling.”

“Really?” His voice is incredulous.

“Dad, please. Can we at least have this conversation later?”

“When, baby girl? You’re booked all day tomorrow. We leave the next morning.”

“Well…”

“I know you’d rather talk to Luna about these things. She’s a good friend. But she’s so young. She doesn’t always have the perspective.”

“What perspective do you have? You date less often than I do.” I try to say it in a teasing way, but I only get halfway there.

He chuckles anyway. “Are you sure?”

“That you—”

“About it being a fling?”

“Oh.” My chest pangs. It already hurts. But it will get easier with time. That’s what people say.

“He might want more.”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe. But sometimes that doesn’t matter.” He’s quiet for a moment. Then he pushes the cart forward. “What do you want?”

“More pens.” I grab a multi-colored set. Pink, purple, red, green. A bright green and a teal closer to Holden’s eyes. His eyes are softer. Greyer. A million times more beautiful.

Dad makes that hmmm noise that means why are you lying to yourself?

At least, it does when he makes it.

“Don’t hmmm me.”

“I won’t.”

“You are.”

“I said nothing.” He shrugs, feigning innocence.

“You’re thinking it.”

Dad mimes zipping his lips. He turns to the cart. Guides it to the next aisle. Organizers.

We have plenty, but I don’t want to call it yet. I don’t want to step outside and breathe in the cool night air and realize that I might never hug, kiss, touch Holden again.

“He seems like a nice boy,” Dad says.

“Is that reverse psychology?” I ask.

“Approve so you’ll lose interest?”

“Yeah.”

“No.” His laugh is soft. “You never went through that phase.”

“Maybe I’m due.”

He makes that same hmmm noise.

I clear my throat.

“Okay. No hmmm.” His gaze shifts to the glass doors. “Isn’t that his car? In the parking lot?”

It is his silver sedan. But I’m not thinking about that.

“You could talk to him.”

I shake my head. “It’s too hard.”

He nods with understanding. “Love isn’t always enough.”

“It’s not… We’re not…” Maybe we are. I don’t know. “Does it always suck this bad?”

“Yeah. But the first cut is the deepest.”

“When does it stop hurting?”

“I don’t know. Soon, I hope.”

“Me too.” But I have a feeling it won’t.

Chapter Forty-Four

Holden

I suck a breath through my nose as I step into the Flynn house.

It’s decked in blue and gold streamers. A giant cut out of a bear.

A circular table filled with every mixer imaginable.

And not a single drop of booze.

Or so it seems.

I know better. The off-brand cola on the left—no one would drink it when there’s actual Coke and Pepsi available—is half bourbon.

God knows what’s in the off-brand lemon-lime soda.

Or the ginger ale.

I nod hello to the eighteen-year-old who greets me. Some guy from Daisy’s school. He’s vaguely familiar in an over eager kid kind of way.

Not that I can talk.

I was the same when I was his age.

He is her age.

The age of a guy who should be dating her.

Another reason why I should back the fuck off.

But, hey, I’m just here to say goodbye. To drop off this present. To… whatever.

I cut through the room—it’s not all that crowded, four or five of Daisy’s friends plus most of the guys from Inked Love—and pour a glass of ginger ale.